Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Life List Day 79 - Conquer My Self-Cleaning Oven

I've had a few baking - let's say - incidents, which have resulted in a very nasty layer of goo at the bottom of my oven. And by "my" oven, I mean the oven that came with my apartment. I've typically rented from slumlords before and, therefore, have never had a fancy self-cleaning oven like the one I have now. For that matter, I don't think I've ever had an oven made after the 1970s. So I've had no clue how to work it. It may be self cleaning, but it's clearly looking for some sort of direction from me.

Today, I set out to make that oven clean itself if it was the last thing I ever did.

There's no manual. At first, I just started pressing buttons. Then I tried looking up instructions on the Internet. That failing, I called my mom. I called the landlord. My son got in on the act. I went back to pressing buttons. I was getting carpal tunnel in my index finger, but I hoped I'd eventually find the mystery combination of buttons... and I did!

Suddenly, the "self cleaning oven" light lit, and the oven sealed itself like a bomb shelter.

After about 20 minutes, my house was filled with noxious smoke.

"Is this supposed to happen?" my son asked nonchalantly, eating ice cream from a carton while I threw open windows and did a google search under "oven self cleaning smoke normal harmful death?" You'd be surprised how many web sites come up for that - one of which assured me that we'd be fine (but small animals could be harmed, which was why Joan and Scruffy's cage went outside for a few hours...they're still squeaking about it).

Anyway, it wasn't the most glamorous thing to do for my life list, but it sure was exciting.

And if you like the idea of Life Lists, check out my novel, THE NEXT THING ON MY LIST. It tells the story of a woman who is trying to complete a Life List for someone who died before she had a chance to finish it herself.